Friday, September 25, 2009

Antigua, Guatemala

First of all Happy Birthday to Carlito!All of you: sing with me....Happy birthday to you...etcetera...In the pics he's having his first antiguan breakfast after a night of deserved rest.We left San Cristobal in the morning not as early as we planned due to my second plug leaking air...we had to re-plug it and that took a while...the tires change tomorrow will make me (us) very happy.Then the borders...the exit from Mexico was actually painless. We were on the other hand sweating profusely, but only because of the fierce heat.When we arrived,a couple of miles after at the entrance point to Guatemala we thought that the people there directed us in the middle of an extremely busy market area instead of the passport office but no! It was the right way...We had to slalom trough vendors, chickens, kids, dogs, stalls, carts,beggars, shocked tourist and... cars and huge trucks coming from the opposite way...Tijuana is a piece of cake compare to this! But we made it to the offices and they were efficient and very corteous.Then we took off trough a fantastic mountain side and gorges and beautiful clouds...than it became darker and darker until all the rain in it decided to pour on us!Soaked again! Very very soaked...too late again to stop safely to wear rain gears...So we kept going ...and going ...and going... we even got separated again trough a town with a lot of traffic navigating trough a river that must have been a street sometime...this time a couple on a scooter volutarely told me were karl was waiting for me when they saw me waiting for him...we must stand up quite a bit and again a sign of welcome in an other country.And so we made it to the center of Antigua at dark and under a torretial diluge so we crashed in the first hotel we found. We parked our bikes in the lobby and we took a great warm shower and we loved wearing our dry clothes. We had a nice middle eastern (!) dinner and we slept non stop until this morning. Our clothes are drying now ( after been washed)and this afternoon we'll meet with Johanna and tomorrow off to Guatemala city to change tires.Then...we'll see what to do, our plans are ever changing and it's all a learning experience including building strenght in accepting delays, de-tours and disappointments... geographicals and emotionals... ... ... The team is still strong and in good health. So we'll figure out also how to make it more south next... Maybe building a raft like El Che did...Inshalla.